After a restful, rainy night in Spearfish, South Dakota, just over the border fromWyoming, Wednesday morning we headed up US 85 into North Dakota across vast open grasslands that help form the Great Plains of North America. I finally quite counting all the antelope we saw afar off, grazing on the prarie. We passed mile after mile of grain, corn and hay harvesting; evidence of the farming skills of this wonderful country and a recognition of the natural resources of this marvelous and favored land! We turned east on I-94 in North Dakota and stopped on the west shore of the Missouri River for a brief look at old Fort Abraham Lincoln, across of the city of Bismark. It was from Ft. Abraham Lincoln that General George Armstrong Custer led his famous 7th Cavalry west to the banks of the Little Big Horn River in what is now southern Montana, falsely believing that he was the equal of any force the Indians could bring against him. Of course the record shows how quickly he and his brave men died for his mistaken belief in his own power.
We traveled across the Missouri, through Bismark on I-94 and on to the Minnesota border, staying the night at a motel in Fargo, ND. It was a long day, but again the feeling of wonder at the beauty of the earth and the sky. Thes sky was filled with cloud formations, building storms in the far distance, but little if any rain direcly on us. The temperature remaining in the low 60s.
